"Teeth fall out, hair grows grey;
Yet man clings to hope that plays him false."
Well, King, now that you have introduced the subject of hope, let me give you another verse from the Ocean of Renunciation. It runs as follows:
That fetters are binding, all are aware;
But fetters of hope are strange, I declare.
Hope's captive is tossed in the whirlpool's wake,
And only grows still when the fetters break.
Ah, Pundit. Your words are priceless. Vizier, give him a hundred gold sequins at once. What's that noise outside?
It is the famine-stricken people.
Tell them to hold their peace.
Let Sruti-bhushan, with his book of devotions, go and try to bring them peace; and, in the meanwhile, Your Majesty might discuss war matters——
No, no. Let the war matters come later. I can't let Sruti-bhushan go yet.
King, you said something to me, a moment ago, about a gift of gold. Now mere gold, by itself, does not confer any permanent benefit. It is said in my book of devotions, called the Ocean of Renunciation:
He who gives gold, gives only pain;
When the gold is spent grief comes again.
When a lakh, or crore, of gold is spent,
Grief only remains in the empty tent.